Friday, December 08, 2006

The holiday/pre-birthday blues have a bit of a hold on me this week, affecting my dreams and making me a bit paranoid. So needless to say, I was not quite in the mind frame to hear the “compliment” that was given to me today as complimentary.

She said “Oh, you’re a big girl. But you’re surprisingly toned for a big girl.”

A Big girl? I wear a size 8, sometimes a 10.

I am not the “anorexic chic” so popular in Hollywood these days, and certainly no one has ever accused me of having an eating disorder. But seriously folks…

Some of the most beautiful women I know are lush and round and curvy, the way women are supposed to be. We are designed to have layers, which keep our innards warm, so that we can create and sustain life within us. (Subsequently, we are more likely to survive hypothermia as well. Go Girls!)

The whole contemplation of today’s notion of beautiful women reminded me of yesterday’s encounter in Starbucks. I was waiting for my Gingerbread Latte, when a woman came in. Her 6 inch heels were a bit over the top for the 10am coffee run. Her rhinestone bejeweled jogging suit was the best in Juicy Couture (and will never see a moment of actual jogging.) Her breasts were melons of saline so ripe I thought they might pop if someone brushed against her. But most outstanding in her appearance was her face. Modern cosmetic science had so enhanced her facial features that I doubt she will ever be able to “unpucker” again. Additionally, when she approached the counter from behind me, I noted that she mumbled incomprehensibly. I can only assume it was some version of “excuse me”, but who knows!? Between her collagen swollen lips and her overly botoxed nasal folds, she couldn’t move her mouth enough to articulate the English language. This is “beautiful”??!?!?

What happened to Marilyn Monroe and Mae West? Where are the screen goddesses who were naturally bodacious? Kudos to Kate Winslet and Scarlett Johansson for being proud to be curvy and real, while still managing to pull off being beautiful.

Because if our only two choices are “12-yr-old-boy-thin” and “so-enhanced-you-can’t-talk”, then today's women are in a world of hurt.

editorial note: while researching the topic on line, I came aross this post which I found both fascinating and a bit terrifying

Sunday, December 03, 2006

In the last hour of the night, before sleep overtook her active mind and dragged her beneath, she made a list of all the things yet undone. She wrote from her heart, pouring out beliefs and goals, evacuating the small crevices where hope still festered in a largely bitter existence. She dredged up the very crispy bits at the bottom of the cauldron of her being, and she penned each half-burned dream onto cream paper, in a flowery round script aided by the easy flow of her purple gel uni-ball with the chewed up cap.

The last one stood out most harshly, mocking her with its incompleteness: "Fall in love"

In that last hour of dark dim lighting and deep heart stirrings, she mourned her many abortive attempts to lose herself in connection with another. To allow her walls to sink completely and leave herself, not defenseless...but open, to the experience of sharing. Instead of a history full of Hallmarkian tenderness, she looked back on a catalogue of grossly co-dependant relationships, thick with abuse and irony. The 'been there, done that" list of her heart's attacks read like a baby name book, only one where "David" didn't mean "beloved", but more "raving jackass" and "Tony*" was less "priceless" and more "psycho."*

A throaty humorless laugh escaped as she admitted defeat in all games important to her. Her family, broken as it was had left her behind long ago, and her friends had disappeared into a sea of unfortunate excuses. The only element of her life with harmony and humor had passed one week ago today, at an unforgettably sad moment in the vet's office, and now she sat in a lifeless room, in the silence of a falling night, wishing to blot out any memory of her existence at all.

She took the pages where she'd written all her failures and carried them to the bathroom, setting fire to them with a thin yellow plastic lighter someone had left on her desk at work. The low flames blacked the edges of the paper as they consumed their way across the written words, leaving ash and embers in their place. She discarded the remnants into the open toilet and chuckled once again as she realized how quickly and easily it could all be flushed away.

Turning to the counter, she saw collected there a bevy of medicinal remedies for a hundred imagined ailments, and like mixed jellybellys, popped any variety of color and shape into her mouth. Lowering her head to the spout of the rusty faucet, she drank only as much water as she needed to swallow the caplets and tablets that held escape in their grainy pharmaceutical hands. And then she returned to her room, and her bed.

In the last hour of her life, she rested her head on her pillow and wept until the pain faded away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~* it's a work of fiction. No offense meant to any Davids or Tonys. Well, ok, no offense meant to any Davids, and to 99.9% of Tonys. That .1% knows who he is.